


This Planet, Our Planet

by salable_mystic



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Colonization, Gen, Sergyar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being in charge of the colonization of Sergyar is hard - and incredibly easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Planet, Our Planet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/gifts).



> Dear Celli, happy yuletide to you, and thank you for the great prompt! It made me wonder just what a halfway-realistic colonization effort on a new planet would look like ... and this is the result. (I have not yet read "Gentleman Yole...", so there are no spoilers for that :-)).
> 
> Happy yuletide!!!

Being on Sergyar and away from the hotbed of imperial politics is nothing but a relief, Cordelia finds. While imperial politics – and consequently, life – had become easier in recent years, as political relations stabilized and Gregor became more settled in his role of Emperor – the sheer physical distance between Barrayar and Sergyar means that they are, by necessity, out of the loop when it comes to imperial politics – and that is such a relief after two decades of constantly looking over their collective shoulders that living in the middle of one gigantic construction site in the middle of a largely unexplored wilderness here on Sergyar is ever so much better.

Sergyar ... the name is not one either Aral or her can ever think of with fondness, and thus it isn’t one they much use when they talk between themselves, preferring to call it simply “this planet” or sometimes even, a little presumptuously, “our planet” (it is where they met, after all, so from a personal – if not a galactic – point of view it certainly is fitting). Protesting the name had been impossible, of course, named as the planet is for the crown prince who had so valiantly led his troops and given his life in the tragically unsuccessful invasion of Escobar. _Right_. There are so very, very few people who know the truth about that dark and unfortunate episode in Barrayaran history – and the fewer the better – that consequently no-one dared say anything. And to the Barrayaran public it might indeed seem as if Serg had been an unfortunate casualty of imperial overreaching and the War Party’s ambition, whose tragic death was partially responsible for the War of the Pretendership, rather than Serg the unstable son of a ruthless emperor who ended up at the heart of a monumental vortex of intentional disaster meant to kill the very person the name of the planet is now honoring. And, well, as _his_ son is now on the throne, after all ... naming the planet for his father was ... the politically expedient thing to do. (She would have drawn the line at Gesyar or Vorrutyar, though, as she’s informed Aral. Not that that was ever up for discussion).

And, truly – names are such insubstantial things. The problems, challenges, compromises, solutions, and triumphs of settling on a new planet remain the same, no matter the application its new colonists have given to the wilderness they are so proudly venturing into. The planet doesn't care. Nor, truly, do the colonists. What the Barrayaran colonists care about are places to sleep, water to drink, things to eat, heating, showers, sanitation ... and to not be killed by previously unknown traits of their new home planet. All of which makes for quite a tall order, as far as Cordelia is concerned. And just what criteria were they all using when they decided that the former Regent and his wife were qualified to be at the head of such valiant venturing forth, Cordelia can’t help but keep wondering. What collective madness rode them? She had wanted to get (to get _Aral_ ) far away from the imperial seat of government, it is true, and had doubted that Vorkosigan Surleau could possibly be far enough (too short a flight, too easy a com call), but did it have to be a colonization effort on an entirely different _planet_?

Politically she and Aral were - and are - a good choice, she can see that – but they really, _really_ aren’t trained frontiersmen, or botanists, or biologists, or geologists, or any kind of practicing scientists at all. Nor are they especially handy when it comes to digging ditches, or to operating the machinery that does the ditch digging for them. And, while she is a former trained member of the Betan survey, her time with survey was a long time ago, and her training is thus both outdated and from an entirely different scientific system.

Still, if the last twenty years have taught them anything, then it is thinking on their feet and how to solve seemingly impossible problems while also keeping their hair perfectly coifed and not being late to imperial gala events – and without the daily drag of needing to have perfectly coiffed hair and attending an endless parade of imperial gala events life has certainly become easier, at least as far as Barrayaran dresscodes and 'the ten proper ways of holding a glass of wine while appearing perfectly at ease during exceedingly boring conversations that make you want to gnash your teeth' are concerned. (She does not miss the endless procession of imperial gala events, receptions, parades, celebrations, commemorations, functions, soirees, and ceremonies. Not. at. all.). And, well, the problems they are solving these days are – while sometimes equally bewildering and seemingly resistant to all possible solutions – far less frequently questions of life and death, so she has to admit that life has gotten easier in that regard, as well.

No, the tangled problems they are dealing with these days involve questions of construction materials (they are using wood. Wood! What a – still, after all her years on Barrayar – remarkable and slightly unnerving concept), water ways, the sanitary architecture of developing settlements, the planning of future road maps, the size of allotments for new settlers, possible allergies to Sergyaran fauna and flora, both likely and unlikely ones ... not to speak of the endless snarls and individual agendas connected to the allocation of time and money to construction projects. Prioritizing the hospital over the official seat of government had been easy, but there are also sewage systems and power plants and wells and water treatment facilities and somehow, impossibly, everyone who is working on these projects also needs to be fed and housed and clothed ... and to be enticed away from Barrayar to come to this it-might-just-be-flown-by-the-collective-seat-of-our-pants madhouse in the wilderness in the first place.

Well, that part is not actually true – it’s surprising how many Barrayarans are perfectly willing to make – keen on making, even – a life for themselves on Sergyar.

They’re housing most of the new settlers in dormitories, still, and have no immediate plans of changing that – and yet, men and women from all over Barrayar are coming to Sergyar, knowing that hard work and a life largely devoid of all but the most basic amenities lie in their foreseeable futures. And while they are indeed drawing a large amount of their settlers from their own district, Cordelia was relieved to learn that settlers are, in fact, coming from _all over_ Barrayar. They’re from the lower classes rather than the upper ones, it is true, but there are some second and third sons (and daughters!) of some minor Vor families among them, too. And so far, everyone has gotten along surprisingly well. Aral and her make a point of welcoming all the new settlers personally, and of seeing that everyone gets roughly the same type of accommodation and treatment. And, well, it certainly also helps that the Viceroy and Vicereine of Sergyar are living in a simple two-story wooden building for the time being, with most of the downstairs functioning as a make-shift meeting room and general command center, and hot water being only available when one makes an effort to heat it up especially (even if, yes, they have armsmen to do that job for them).

Stratification of society will undoubtedly and inevitably lie in Sergyar’s future, once things are up and running and they are no longer a collective of pioneers semi-stranded in a largely unknown or only broadly understood wilderness, but for now it’s hard work, perseverance, sore muscles, sweat, and grits ... and immigrants who learn that they aren’t comfortable with that kind of life are gently encouraged to go back to Barrayar, rather than being enticed into staying. Not that there are many of those, these days.

The Imperial Machine, keen on finding settlers for this Great Imperial Undertaking (and on utilizing Sergyar as a pressure valve for a growing population largely devoid of opportunities for advancement on the home planet) had quickly seized on the colonialization effort as an object for public relations (propaganda), but after the first wave of unrealistic and idealistic advertisements had brought them settlers who had no understanding of the hardships in store for them Cordelia had ... _persuaded_ ... Gregor to _persuade_ , in his turn, the imperial public relations machine to include actual footage from Sergyar, as well as realistic descriptions of the present and future trials and opportunities in store for prospective settlers. Sometimes, Cordelia has to admit, living in an imperium were you actually helped raise the current Emperor does indeed have its advantages (along with all its challenges and pitfalls and days of sheer terror (in the past, hopefully all in the past)).

The way they’ve arranged dealing with their planet and their settlers – and the Imperium that they are still (some days fortunately, other days _un_ fortunately) part of – is this: both Aral and her deal with the administrative and representational details of life on a new planet, Aral deals with the political side of settling Sergyar and most of their relations with Barrayar and Komarr and the wider universe (not that Cordelia can entirely avoid those, but she’s trying), and Cordelia ... Cordelia has spent months bringing herself up to speed on questions concerning their actual interactions with Sergyar’s physical environment (botany, zoology, geology, meteorology, ...) – enough that, while she is an expert at none of them, she once again almost feels as if she is in charge of her own little (enormous, planet-sized!) survey ship. She’s surrounded by some of Barrayar’s best and brightest, young university graduates from the natural sciences who are working on transplanting life from one planetary ecosystem into a different one as efficiently and gently as possible ... and she is at the confluence of it all, immersed in science briefings for most of the hours of her day, often to be found out in the fields inspecting growing crops while listening to reports on growth rates and plant interactions with the soil, or in the trench of a sewage construction site being briefed on expected drainage rates and pipe elevations, her hair in a tangle and Sergyaran dirt on her serviceable no-frills pants and boots, as far away from the glittering madness and terrifying exultations of the imperial palace as one can get while still remaining in the Imperium, not only in regards to galactic location and physical surroundings, but also regarding her state of mind ... and she is reveling, rejoicing, made entirely gleeful by it all.

Yes, life is hard here on Sergyar, there are people she misses who are far away, but Aral is thriving, away from the endless and frequently cruel scrutiny of the Imperial court – and so is she.

This might not be the quiet life in Vorkosigan Surleau that Aral initially proposed to her, all those years ago, but it certainly isn’t the Imperial Palace either. And somehow, she thinks, this is better. Yes, Cordelia knows, she loves this planet and this undertaking, dirt, hardships, lack of amenities, unfortunate name, and all.

 

 


End file.
